WISN (12-1) Audio Dropouts

[kevbeck122]

WISN sends out everything non-5.1 in DD2.0.  That's why it's always displayed as Dolby Digital.

[Steve Mann]

Audio only dropout last night during Boston Legal. Happened at approximately ten minutes into the program. All lights and indicators remained illuminated on my receiver during the drop out.

[Bluto]

First 12engr, thanks for taking the time and effort to keep us up to date as you look into this.  It's greatly appreciated.

I do not remember an audio dropouts before that date.  Do others?

[StarvingForHDTV]

Out of curiosity, does anyone remember if there were these dropouts before August 26th of this year?

I don't remember the exact date, but it has been a fairly recent problem.  I'm guessing I first noticed it during Monday Night Football.  Maybe pre-season?  That would match your date fairly close.

[Mark Strube]

Audio only dropout last night during Boston Legal. Happened at approximately ten minutes into the program. All lights and indicators remained illuminated on my received during the drop out.

Same here, I've never seen the Dolby Digital light turn off during the longer dropouts on 12-1, on both TWC and OTA. Tt usually does turn off if there's a signal error or on dropouts on other channels on TWC, although those usually last less than 1 second.

What does ABC think of this problem? Jimboy worked with WB to fix 18-1's dropouts and discovered a sat receiver needed a software update.

[kevbeck122]

I continued to receive a DD signal during the drop right at the opener for Lost.

[SRW1000]

There was another audio dropout on Lost tonight, just before going to the first commercial.  The picture didn't freeze, just lost the audio.  I couldn't see if the Dolby indicator went off.

This was observed from my HD OTR receiver.

Scott

[caveman]

Had a couple of audio drops around 8:14 on Lost.  My dolby digital light went out.  Also, having terrible audio sync problems.  I'm using antenna for OTA.

[SRW1000]

Just had another audio drop out during Lost at 8:53 PM.  Nothing changed on my audio receiver's display during the drop out.

Scott

[Joseph S]

I had two back-to-back total dropouts at :53. The first prior-to-commercial drop was audio only. Geez, been behind on my watching and missed some of this, but this quality unacceptable. These are well beyond the scale of the past two years. Afraid to see my Boston Legal recordings.

[SRW1000]

Another dropout during a commercial break at 9:42 PM.  No change in my preamps display.

OTA HD.

Scott

[12engr]

Thanks all for the feedback tonight.

I was able to detect 2 CRC errors on our Dolby-E decoder (unfortunately this doesn't explain why there were many more 'dropouts' tonight).

I won't go into the wiring details but CRC errors on our decoder can't cause DD5.1 drop-outs on our encoder.   I understand that there can be an audio dropout when the decoder detects an error but it shouldn't affect the DD5.1 detection in your recievers.  There seems to be a 50/50 split on DD indicator lights reflecting the loss of audio.   In addition, just because there is a CRC error it doesn't indicate there was an audio dropout (CRC errors are usually repaired by the decoder before the signal leaves the 'box').  The decoder detects 2 or 3 CRC errors a day, and has since it was installed (well before the latest plauge of problems).

Now the big request.  I know this is painfull...  Does anyone notice audio drops when they are watching upconverted SD (channel 12-1, during a non-HD program... not analog 12).  I still have a real-time monitor connected to our off-air receiver.  It is only detecting audio droputs going into, and coming out of breaks (it is programmed to detect audio loss of 1 sec. or more).

Please be patient.  We are actively looking into the issue.  There is even a vendor looking into possible causes.

Regrads,

[Joseph S]

Does anyone notice audio drops when they are watching upconverted SD

I've seen it on the football games on Saturday afternoons on TWC. Haven't seen any with the OTA tuners because they're usually on the other game and don't watch much SD anymore.

[caveman]

I experience audio dropouts when watching Jimmy Kimmel live (which I believe is upconverted) on 12-1.  Also, I have experienced them during 10:00 news broadcasts.

[kjnorman]

I only noted two drop while watching Lost last night.  One was about the 7 minute mark just before the commercial break and another was around the 45-53 minute mark (not sure the exact time).

As I Tivo this, I rewound and checked my Amp display and it continues to indicate dolby digital during the drop.  During commercials it drops to dolby pro-logic so as far as the amp was concerned nothing was wrong - it just played silence.

Picture was rock solid all night.

Hope this helps.